The 2008 Election

A note about politics, seeing as it’s election year 2008 in the U.S.A. -

I have a message for those of you who

1. voted for Bush, or
2. worse, didn’t vote at all in 2000 or 2004, AND

are now planning to vote for McCain if your Democratic candidate fails to secure the nomination.

If neither of those situations apply to you, please skip this rant.

/start political rant

I’ve been through the protests, the canvassing, and the illegal arrests and detention at Pier 57 during the RNC in 2004 in New York City. I’ve argued. I’ve postered. I’ve debated. I’ve voted. I’ve rotated the signs on my dorm room doors and windows, marched in the cold and rain, spoken first at an anti-war rally in front of thousands of people, and stopped traffic to get my point across. I’ve used so many posters when walking miles through cities that I’ve lost count. I was willing to end up in jail and have the FBI take my fingerprints because that’s how strongly I believe that the neo-conservatives in this country have fucked things up royally for the rest of us in the world, not merely the United States.

Now everyone is excited and riled up by the news media and bitter over a Democratic stalemate between two historical candidates with (surprisingly) centrist positions. That’s right. Neither of them are progressives.

Frankly? I’m over it.

I’m really tired of formerly apathetic political centrists joining the game a day late and a dollar short.

I’m tired of acting like we progressives ought to be “thankful” that people are actually bothering to to their civic duty and gasp! THINK before blindly casting a vote to keep the status quo or because Bush ’sounds like a cool guy.’

But most of all, I’m tied of the attitude that those of us who were right…what, eight years ago? Four years ago? Both? have to offer gratitude and pat people on the backs for doing the right thing when it is far, far too late for that.

It will take another two terms at the very least to simply clean up the mess the Bush administration has made and to break even on progress.

I don’t like the racism or the sexism being tossed around in order to help one candidate or another. I don’t like how neither of them is willing to stand up for equal civil rights for GBLT people or give the poor the help they need to break the cycle of poverty by providing national health care.

I’m most concerned about two things right now: universal health care and the Supreme Court. Let’s talk about that latter one for a second.

All of the progressive justices are over 70. Stevens is 87. Some of them are not going to make it another eight years without retiring or dropping dead. Bush replaced two justices in a single term, both of whom are under 62 and will likely be there for 35 more years. The current balance for overturning many critical pieces of legislation (providing the willingness to ignore stare decisis) is 5-4. One only has to look up the five major decisions of the Court in 2007 and see that all of them came out the wrong way, on the side of injustice, sexism, anti-choice, pro-big business, and anti-environment to see that the SCOTUS has already shifted to the right significantly. These are the nine people who decide whether a presidental recount is constitutional, who define what our 200-year old laws actually mean, who are supposed to keep church and state in separate playpens and protect our rights, both as human beings and as citizens of the first truly democratic country to successfully throw off its oppressors and win independence in the modern world.

All four progressive judges are senior citizens and have been for over a decade. Take a moment. Think about that.

You say you don’t feel you know enough about a Democratic candidate? Well, I can tell you right now that neither of them is a worse alternative than a man who openly holds the wrong opinions on almost every single progressive issue there is. McCain IS anti-choice. He IS pro-unfair deregulation and free-trade. He admitted in 2007 that he calls Vietnamese ‘g**ks’ and will always call them ‘damned g**ks.’

Now tell me that you want to vote for McCain over either Clinton or Obama if your ‘fan favorite’ ends up losing the nomination.

It’s time to stop being stubborn and selfish and to start thinking about the BIG PICTURE.

That is all.

/end rant